July 5, 6:30pm, Falls Church, VA

Still at Tommy's house. He and his wife have a daughter who is just over 1 year old. She is perhaps the happiest baby I have ever seen. Her name is Emma, and it's amazingly great to be around her. No surprise, because her parents are good people (nice like you wouldn't believe).

So I'm glad that Dave and I are rained out. Rained IN, really. Flash flood warnings until 9pm, at least. We can't even take the tent down, let alone leave.

Dave and I arrived yesterday afternoon, after accidentally getting waylaid at a 7-11 half a mile from Tom's house. Tom and Allison were at a party, and weren't getting back until 9ish. So Ddogg and I did the full-on hobo act for the neighbors. We washed ourselves from the hose, set up a tent, and cooked out dinner on our tiny gasoline stove - all in the backyard.

Then, in the middle of dinner, Ddogg tried to get a bug out of his ear. Everything was tried - flashlight shining, q-tipping, finger poking, bloodied-q-tip-stick-with-all-the-cotton-pulled-off jabbing. Nothing worked. The next step was to blare 2Live Crew into Ddogg's ear until the bugger came out.

But that could have hurt Ddogg's ear.

So he went to the ER. They used water - I suppose that's why they're doctors and we're not.

I asked him at dinner, "When did you first think you had a bug in your ear?" I guess I was picturing a scene where he wakes up and casually twirls his pinky finger in his ear canal, and he touches insect hinder, and then a look of dread passes over his face.

But he's all short-tempered and like, "I don't know!"

I say, "This afternoon or this morning?"

Even more cross, he spits out a frustrated, "I. Don't. KNOW."

I wanted to be all sassy and snap, "What crawled up your ass?" but then I know he would have hit me. He would have lunged across Tommy's deck table and strangled me.


Ddogg's ER discharge paper: "You have had a foreign body removed from your ear canal (or your child's ear canal). You may have some soreness [and] bleeding for several hours."

Yikes. Vengeful Methodist God, I fear and respect you. Please leave me be.

7/4 Tommy's, Falls Church, VA - recharge! -> 11 hours